Tales of teens
30/05/14 05:39
I suppose that it was suspenseful on television. I didn’t watch. I’m pretty sure that had I watched, I would have become annoyed with the frequent commercial interruptions. It would have been an annoyance to have been in the audience as well as prime-time live television means that the actual event has to be interrupted for all of those commercial breaks.
The crowd had a clear-cut favorite. Jacob Williamson of Cape Coral, Florida would pump his arms and utter screams of joy each time he successfully advanced to another round. He pounded the stage floor when he advanced to the final round. It was the climax of three days that started with 281 spellers in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Jacob, however, didn’t win. He correctly spelled “rhadamanthine” and “carcharodont,” but missed on “Kabarogoya.” My computer’s spell checker, on the other hand, couldn’t master any of those words.
The event was a nail-biter in the end, however, After the competition was down to only two spellers, both made a mistake in the 16th round. 14-year-old Siriam Hathwar missed “corpsbruder,” but he got a reprieve when 13-year-old Ansun Sujoe missed “antigropelos.” That forced the spelling bee into extra innings. According to the rules, the bee goes to a special 25-word championship list.
The two continued, correctly spelling word after word. The final word on the list, “feuilleton,” fell to Ansun. He got it correct and for the first time in history the national spelling bee ended in a tie.
It didn’t get the audience of a college basketball game, but a lot more people notice the national bee after the 2006 movie Akeelah and the Bee was released to critical acclaim.
There is something inspiring about a room full of teenagers who spend their free time studying the dictionary.
OK, I’m a bit of a nerd. But I do love dictionaries and am delighted to see a new generation of youth who enjoy them. Of course every one who made it to the national spelling bee received a Microsoft tablet computer as part of their recognition, so those young people aren’t using paper dictionaries to study - they are using electronic dictionaries and probably have specialized computer programs to quiz them on a regular basis. Hmm . . . I wonder if I should try to get one of those applications for my phone.
I didn’t start out life as a good speller. When I was in my early teens, I thought of myself as a very poor speller and had no interest in spelling bees. It was only when I got to my late teens and early twenties that I decided that I could learn to spell. Since that time, I’ve become a decent speller, though nowhere near a champion.
On the front page of the Washington Post web site this morning, alongside the story of the national spelling bee there is a chilling story about two teens who engaged in systematic bullying and abuse of an autistic classmate.
The boy, who is high functioning and was attending high school, was abused by two girls, one 17, the other 15. They used their cell phones to record holding a butcher knife to his throat and luring him into a partially frozen pond, then refusing to help him when he fell in. The videos and statements that were given to the police are so ugly that the judge asked, “Why would any human being treat another person like this?”
The 15-year-old girl was sentenced in juvenile court in April to a maximum of six years in a secure juvenile facility after pleading guilty to second-degree assault and displaying of an obscene photograph of a minor.
The 17-year-old was originally charged as an adult, but the judge ruled that the case should be moved from adult court to juvenile court. Had she been convicted in adult court she could have faced up to 80 years in prison. Now she will be incarcerated in a juvenile facility for four years after pleading guilty.
Law enforcement officers expressed disappointment at the judge’s ruling. They had been seeking the maximum penalties for the high-profile case.
I am simply not qualified to comment on the judge’s decision. Here is what I do know. The victim will not have healed from the damage caused by the abuse by the time the offenders are released from incarceration. He will struggle with the effects of it for the rest of his life. You don’t get over something like that - you get through it. Hopefully he will have the counseling support he needs to get on with his life.
What is shocking about the case is the lack of remorse and empathy. The abusers were successful high school students. One was a cheerleader. And yet they had failed in the basic human task of learning to care for other humans. Who knows what kind of adults they might have become had they not been caught and convicted for their crimes. Such ruthlessness is beyond imagination.
The girls statements to officers after their arrests were very troubling. “We should have erased the videos. We were stupid. We’ll be smarter after this.” Is it possible that they were already thinking of more abuse and torture of another human being. One girl, when authorities came to her home to arrest her said, “I have a project tomorrow. I can’t go to jail.” It is about as self-centered as a person can get.
Side by side in the newspaper stories of the best and the worst of teenage behavior. Like people of all ages, the good and the bad are often closer together than we might imagine. I have no idea how good the abusers are at spelling. I don’t know much about the capacity of the spellers for empathy.
The thing that gave me hope from the stories was a little note in the report of the spelling bee. It said that during the final round each speller who missed a word and didn’t advance received a standing ovation from the other spellers.
And the two who tied for the victory had both missed one word. They know how it feels. The empathy for other spellers at least was clearly illustrated.
I can only pray that the abusers can learn empathy for the victim without having to be victims themselves.
The crowd had a clear-cut favorite. Jacob Williamson of Cape Coral, Florida would pump his arms and utter screams of joy each time he successfully advanced to another round. He pounded the stage floor when he advanced to the final round. It was the climax of three days that started with 281 spellers in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Jacob, however, didn’t win. He correctly spelled “rhadamanthine” and “carcharodont,” but missed on “Kabarogoya.” My computer’s spell checker, on the other hand, couldn’t master any of those words.
The event was a nail-biter in the end, however, After the competition was down to only two spellers, both made a mistake in the 16th round. 14-year-old Siriam Hathwar missed “corpsbruder,” but he got a reprieve when 13-year-old Ansun Sujoe missed “antigropelos.” That forced the spelling bee into extra innings. According to the rules, the bee goes to a special 25-word championship list.
The two continued, correctly spelling word after word. The final word on the list, “feuilleton,” fell to Ansun. He got it correct and for the first time in history the national spelling bee ended in a tie.
It didn’t get the audience of a college basketball game, but a lot more people notice the national bee after the 2006 movie Akeelah and the Bee was released to critical acclaim.
There is something inspiring about a room full of teenagers who spend their free time studying the dictionary.
OK, I’m a bit of a nerd. But I do love dictionaries and am delighted to see a new generation of youth who enjoy them. Of course every one who made it to the national spelling bee received a Microsoft tablet computer as part of their recognition, so those young people aren’t using paper dictionaries to study - they are using electronic dictionaries and probably have specialized computer programs to quiz them on a regular basis. Hmm . . . I wonder if I should try to get one of those applications for my phone.
I didn’t start out life as a good speller. When I was in my early teens, I thought of myself as a very poor speller and had no interest in spelling bees. It was only when I got to my late teens and early twenties that I decided that I could learn to spell. Since that time, I’ve become a decent speller, though nowhere near a champion.
On the front page of the Washington Post web site this morning, alongside the story of the national spelling bee there is a chilling story about two teens who engaged in systematic bullying and abuse of an autistic classmate.
The boy, who is high functioning and was attending high school, was abused by two girls, one 17, the other 15. They used their cell phones to record holding a butcher knife to his throat and luring him into a partially frozen pond, then refusing to help him when he fell in. The videos and statements that were given to the police are so ugly that the judge asked, “Why would any human being treat another person like this?”
The 15-year-old girl was sentenced in juvenile court in April to a maximum of six years in a secure juvenile facility after pleading guilty to second-degree assault and displaying of an obscene photograph of a minor.
The 17-year-old was originally charged as an adult, but the judge ruled that the case should be moved from adult court to juvenile court. Had she been convicted in adult court she could have faced up to 80 years in prison. Now she will be incarcerated in a juvenile facility for four years after pleading guilty.
Law enforcement officers expressed disappointment at the judge’s ruling. They had been seeking the maximum penalties for the high-profile case.
I am simply not qualified to comment on the judge’s decision. Here is what I do know. The victim will not have healed from the damage caused by the abuse by the time the offenders are released from incarceration. He will struggle with the effects of it for the rest of his life. You don’t get over something like that - you get through it. Hopefully he will have the counseling support he needs to get on with his life.
What is shocking about the case is the lack of remorse and empathy. The abusers were successful high school students. One was a cheerleader. And yet they had failed in the basic human task of learning to care for other humans. Who knows what kind of adults they might have become had they not been caught and convicted for their crimes. Such ruthlessness is beyond imagination.
The girls statements to officers after their arrests were very troubling. “We should have erased the videos. We were stupid. We’ll be smarter after this.” Is it possible that they were already thinking of more abuse and torture of another human being. One girl, when authorities came to her home to arrest her said, “I have a project tomorrow. I can’t go to jail.” It is about as self-centered as a person can get.
Side by side in the newspaper stories of the best and the worst of teenage behavior. Like people of all ages, the good and the bad are often closer together than we might imagine. I have no idea how good the abusers are at spelling. I don’t know much about the capacity of the spellers for empathy.
The thing that gave me hope from the stories was a little note in the report of the spelling bee. It said that during the final round each speller who missed a word and didn’t advance received a standing ovation from the other spellers.
And the two who tied for the victory had both missed one word. They know how it feels. The empathy for other spellers at least was clearly illustrated.
I can only pray that the abusers can learn empathy for the victim without having to be victims themselves.